[Pennsylvania] Gov. Rendell backs evolution

York Daily Record [Penna] ^ | 30 September 2005 | NICOLE FREHSEE

[PatrickHenry]

The Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a group organized to promote the teaching of evolution, sent letters Thursday to all 50 governors, urging them to ensure that science classes teach material based on established science.

The letters were signed by more than 100 scientists and clergy of various faiths, the group said.

Although Gov. Ed Rendell had not received the letters as of Thursday afternoon, spokeswoman Kate Philips said he is committed to the idea of teaching evolution in science classes.

Rendell "believes that (intelligent design) is more than appropriate to be taught in religion classes, but has no room in science classes in public schools," Philips said. "But this is in the court's hands now, and other than his opinion, he has no influence."

But a spokeswoman for DefCon, the group's nickname for itself, said the group hopes that after governors receive the letter, they will make a public announcement opposing the teaching of intelligent design.

"It would be nice if (Rendell) took a stance and said, whether it's in the Dover district or any other Pennsylvania district, 'We need to protect the teaching of science in our science classrooms,'" Jessica Smith said.

The group named Dover its top "Island of Ignorance" in the country. It has targeted areas in the country where it says evolution is being challenged at the state level or in public school science classrooms. They include Cobb County, Ga.; Kansas; Blount County, Tenn.; Ohio; Grantsburg, Wisc.; Alabama; Utah; South Carolina; and Florida.

Advocates of intelligent design say life is so complex that it is likely the result of deliberate design by some unidentified creator, not random evolutionary mutation and adaptation.

Critics say it is essentially creationism and violates the separation of church and state when it becomes part of a public school curriculum.

"We can do better when we let science do its job, and ask religion to do its job," former ACLU executive director Ira Glasser said Thursday, "and if there's a need for conversation, please, let's not do it in the classrooms of our children."

[BikerNYC]

For the Bishops challenging Galileo it was a telescope, for modern day "bishops" it is evolution.

[jpf]

Actually Rendell is living proof that evolution has left some of us...ah, less evolved. He's got a lot of hair where hair shouldn't be and none where it should be and the suborbital ridge of his cranium is protruding.

He also thought the Eagles should have drafted a certain pot fiend running back instead of Donovan McNabb. I'm glad the birds ignored the gov! At most he's never lacking for an opinion.

Also, do we have religion classes in public schools? So what they're really saying is, public schools should be anti-religion.

[mlc9852]

Question authority but not evolution?

[TheGhostOfTomPaine]

Science is self-limiting to its own capability. Intelligent design has a much wider reach.

If this means what it appears to mean when parsed -- that "intelligent design theory," unlike science, extends far beyond its own capabilities -- then I couldn't agree more.

[PatrickHenry]

Go find a British dictionary circa 1859 and look up the word "race."

They rarely do research, so I'll help out. Darwin used the word interchangeably with "species" and "sub-species." He even explained that, due to the continuum of living things, there was often no clear dividing line, as with the difference between a village, a town, and a city. There's no crystal-clear way to draw a line in close cases.

[Paradox]

God and Evolution are not mutually exclusive. Ask the Pope.. How about, Evolution is the means by which God created Man?

[Right Wing Professor]

You were way politer than I was about to be to this yahoo.

[MineralMan]

Proof of Evolution:

Early Humanoid female:

Modern Human female:

[mlc9852]

So He did create man as a separate and distinct species? Is that what you are saying? BTW, since I'm not Catholic what the Pope believes has little influence on me.

[IrishBrigade]

...'different ideas aren't enough in science...

An interesting concept, sir...what, in your rigid opinion, is enough for intellectual debate, other that incessant adherence to accepted dogma?

[BikerNYC]

Absolutely question evolution. But questioning evolution with intelligent design is like questioning the composition of the moon by saying it is made out of green cheese. You might as well advise students in science class that some believe all creation stands on the back of a turtle.

[2ndreconmarine]

It's very amusing...watching the evolutionists running about screeching like scalded cats because someone dares to introduce (gasp) different ideas

We have no problem with different ideas. Indeed, the progress of science is predicated on different ideas.

We just don't like stupid different ideas. Especially those that have no physics or rational basis. Those that are contrivances. In a word, we don't do superstition.

If you want to teach ID with other superstition, then have a superstition class. You could include astrology, palmistry, wiccan, and whatever else. Right along with ID.

Our problem is that ID is superstition, not religion, and certainly not science.

[mlc9852]

You can't prove evolution any more than intelligent design. Are you saying anything that can't be proved shouldn't be taught?

[MineralMan]

"You might as well advise students in science class that some believe all creation stands on the back of a turtle."

Doesn't it? I heard it was turtles all the way down.

[mlc9852]

So you think believing in God is superstitious? Have you always believed that?

[MineralMan]

"You can't prove evolution any more than intelligent design. Are you saying anything that can't be proved shouldn't be taught?"

I know you've been reading all these threads, so you can't plead ignorance on this.

[IrishBrigade]

Yeesh, you really get defensive about a little give and take on a topic, don't you? BTW a pathetic attempt at sarcasm on your part...

[MineralMan]

"So you think believing in God is superstitious? Have you always believed that?"

So, you're saying that the Intelligent Design thing does refer to the Judeo-Christian deity? I thought it was independent of religion. Boy, am I confused about all of this. Well, then, if ID refers to creation by the Judeo-Christian deity, then it clearly isn't science. That's just what I thought.

[tucker93]

The history that you claim is rich with scientists who claimed that there is a Creator. Maybe you will recognize some of them:

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) (WOH) Physics, Astronomy (see also The Galileo ‘twist’ and The Galileo affair: history or heroic hagiography?
Johann Kepler (1571–1630) (WOH) Scientific astronomy
Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680) Inventor
John Wilkins (1614–1672)
Walter Charleton (1619–1707) President of the Royal College of Physicians
Blaise Pascal (biography page) and article from Creation magazine (1623–1662) Hydrostatics; Barometer
Sir William Petty (1623 –1687) Statistics; Scientific economics
Robert Boyle (1627–1691) (WOH) Chemistry; Gas dynamics
John Ray (1627–1705) Natural history
Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) Professor of Mathematics
Nicolas Steno (1631–1686) Stratigraphy
Thomas Burnet (1635–1715) Geology
Increase Mather (1639–1723) Astronomy
Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712) Medical Doctor, Botany
The Age of Newton
Isaac Newton (1642–1727) (WOH) Dynamics; Calculus; Gravitation law; Reflecting telescope; Spectrum of light (wrote more about the Bible than science, and emphatically affirmed a Creator. Some have accused him of Arianism, but it’s likely he held to a heterodox form of the Trinity—See Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian? Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997)
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716) Mathematician
John Flamsteed (1646–1719) Greenwich Observatory Founder; Astronomy
William Derham (1657–1735) Ecology
Cotton Mather (1662–1727) Physician
John Harris (1666–1719) Mathematician
John Woodward (1665–1728) Paleontology
William Whiston (1667–1752) Physics, Geology
John Hutchinson (1674–1737) Paleontology
Johathan Edwards (1703–1758) Physics, Meteorology
Carolus Linneaus (1707–1778) Taxonomy; Biological classification system
Jean Deluc (1727–1817) Geology
Richard Kirwan (1733–1812) Mineralogy
William Herschel (1738–1822) Galactic astronomy; Uranus (probably believed in an old-earth)
James Parkinson (1755–1824) Physician (old-earth compromiser*)
John Dalton (1766–1844) Atomic theory; Gas law
John Kidd, M.D. (1775–1851) Chemical synthetics (old-earth compromiser*)
Just Before Darwin
The 19th Century Scriptural Geologists, by Dr Terry Mortenson
Timothy Dwight (1752–1817) Educator
William Kirby (1759–1850) Entomologist
Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826) Geographer
Benjamin Barton (1766–1815) Botanist; Zoologist
John Dalton (1766–1844) Father of the Modern Atomic Theory; Chemistry
Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) Comparative anatomy, paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
Samuel Miller (1770–1840) Clergy
Charles Bell (1774–1842) Anatomist
John Kidd (1775–1851) Chemistry
Humphrey Davy (1778–1829) Thermokinetics; Safety lamp
Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864) Mineralogist (old-earth compromiser*)
Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) Physician; Physiologist
Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Professor (old-earth compromiser*)
David Brewster (1781–1868) Optical mineralogy, Kaleidoscope (probably believed in an old-earth)
William Buckland (1784–1856) Geologist (old-earth compromiser*)
William Prout (1785–1850) Food chemistry (probably believed in an old-earth)
Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
Michael Faraday (1791–1867) (WOH) Electro magnetics; Field theory, Generator
Samuel F.B. Morse (1791–1872) Telegraph
John Herschel (1792–1871) Astronomy (old-earth compromiser*)
Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
William Whewell (1794–1866) Anemometer (old-earth compromiser*)
Joseph Henry (1797–1878) Electric motor; Galvanometer
Just After Darwin
Richard Owen (1804–1892) Zoology; Paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
Matthew Maury (1806–1873) Oceanography, Hydrography (probably believed in an old-earth*)
Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) Glaciology, Ichthyology (old-earth compromiser, polygenist*)
Henry Rogers (1808–1866) Geology
James Glaisher (1809–1903) Meteorology
Philip H. Gosse (1810–1888) Ornithologist; Zoology
Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810–1895) Archeologist
James Simpson (1811–1870) Gynecology, Anesthesiology
James Dana (1813–1895) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert (1817–1901) Agricultural Chemist
James Joule (1818–1889) Thermodynamics
Thomas Anderson (1819–1874) Chemist
Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900) Astronomy
George Stokes (1819–1903) Fluid Mechanics
John William Dawson (1820–1899) Geology (probably believed in an old-earth*)
Rudolph Virchow (1821–1902) Pathology
Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) (WOH) Genetics
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) (WOH) Bacteriology, Biochemistry; Sterilization; Immunization
Henri Fabre (1823–1915) Entomology of living insects
William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) Energetics; Absolute temperatures; Atlantic cable (believed in an older earth than the Bible indicates, but far younger than the evolutionists wanted*)
William Huggins (1824–1910) Astral spectrometry
Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) Non-Euclidean geometries
Joseph Lister (1827–1912) Antiseptic surgery
Balfour Stewart (1828–1887) Ionospheric electricity
James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) (WOH) Electrodynamics; Statistical thermodynamics
P.G. Tait (1831–1901) Vector analysis
John Bell Pettigrew (1834–1908) Anatomist; Physiologist
John Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (1842–1919) Similitude; Model Analysis; Inert Gases
Sir William Abney (1843–1920) Astronomy
Alexander MacAlister (1844–1919) Anatomy
A.H. Sayce (1845–1933) Archeologist
John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945) Electronics; Electron tube; Thermionic valve
The Modern Period
Dr Clifford Burdick, Geologist
George Washington Carver (1864–1943) Inventor
L. Merson Davies (1890–1960) Geology; Paleontology
Douglas Dewar (1875–1957) Ornithologist
Howard A. Kelly (1858–1943) Gynecology
Paul Lemoine (1878–1940) Geology
Dr Frank Marsh, Biology
Dr John Mann, Agriculturist, biological control pioneer
Edward H. Maunder (1851–1928) Astronomy
William Mitchell Ramsay (1851–1939) Archeologist
William Ramsay (1852–1916) Isotopic chemistry, Element transmutation
Charles Stine (1882–1954) Organic Chemist
Dr Arthur Rendle-Short (1885–1955) Surgeon
Sir Cecil P. G. Wakeley (1892–1979) Surgeon
Dr Larry Butler, Biochemist
Prof. Verna Wright, Rheumatologist (deceased 1997)
Arthur E. Wilder-Smith (1915–1995) Three science doctorates; a creation science pioneer

Taken from AiG website.

[BikerNYC]

It's a matter of evidence supporting a theory better than any other theory. There simply is no evidence supporting Intelligent Design. None. Zip.